The Lies We Believe by Carey Lenehan « Carey Lenehan's Poetic Diatribe on WordPress

UK Leadership Debates

The Lies We Believe by Carey Lenehan


Three monkeys sweat beneath the glare of studio lights.
See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil,
for the truth hurts and pain costs votes,
real honesty a road to obscurity.
Easier surely, to waffle and divert
than to ever truly confront reality.

Three wise men squirm in turn before judgemental eyes.
Gold, Frankincense and Myrh,
promise gifts of wealth, prosperity and order,
without saying where it will come from
or how it will be found
because illusion is everything.

Three practised artisans create castles of lies.
Generalise, spin, mislead,
for specifics can lead to admissions of guilt
or parade deep incapacity to care.
So to stay safe in their gilded palaces,
the lies must come thick and fast.

Three potential leaders scrabble for our approval.
Red, Blue, Yellow,
but the differences end there,
for politicking is an art and, as we all so well know,
Artists are a species apart
and do not mix with the mediocre masses.

And when the chips are down with two monkeys slain,
when the wise men's wisdom unravels
and the artisans creations have fallen apart,
what will our lives be like then?
Rich from the wealth of the promises they kept,
or poorer still from the lies we believed?

Obama & The Fly by Carey Lenehan

Obama & The Fly - by Carey Lenehan

Come into my parlour, said Obama to the fly,
lurking on the outside,
and the fly, with five points to every eye, stepped inside,
treading carefully
for as he knows, whilst flies have no fear of irradiation,
they can still be squashed
by a determined hand.

Let me show you American hospitality,
said Obama to the fly
and the fly,
glad to be un-American,
deigned to feed on the happy scraps he was offered
well aware, that in reality,
the whole world was already his own.

Watch my lips, said Obama to the fly,
when both were fed and formalities put to bed,
NO MORE SETTLEMENTS
or I shall be very cross
and you will not like me, when I'm cross
and then he smiled winningly.

The fly regarded Obama with its many eyes,
all five pointed, and replied
Do your worst, for we shall build Jerusalem
upon our pleasant land, green or not
and whatever stands in our way shall be bulldozed
regardless of your objections
because we are chosen, and that's what we do.

Come into my office, said Obama to the fly
and the fly, all senses bristling, stepped inside
to hear Obama say,
Do not forget, little fly, that this is the oval of true power
and you should listen to me
for alone, you are very small and need my protection.

Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once,
said the fly to Obama, wings abuzz, composure unruffled,
When you are not looking, I shall lay eggs on the rotting corpse of peace
and spew acid onto a world we despise until it is remoulded to our liking,
because I am quite simply, superior to you, and you should not forget that.

And as the fly flew heavily from Obama's grasp,
well fed and undaunted by threats,
it followed the money men who gave it sanctuary
because they too, were flies and could buy it many defences,
and with a parting hearty laugh it said to the rest of the world,
See you in hell...

Intelligence Is Imperfect - by Carey Lenehan

Did you know that...

Intelligence is imperfect...
but
plastic surgery will fix the flaws
so glaring to the eye,
which I will now hide.
Watch me tape some silicone
into the hollowed out remains
of a shaken morality
and call it knowledge.
Perhaps I can sculpt my kind of peace,
from the scarred battlegrounds of faith
and failed diplomacy,
with the tapered blade of a surgeon's scalpel
and call it necessity?
All I need,
is to apply a little liposuction
upon those irritating facts
and
Hey Presto!
We have a whole new set of meanings,
adapted interpretations
on the definition
of political protest
with which we may now design our world
the way I like it
so that no one really knows any longer
what is real and what is fake
or if there is any difference
between the two.
Score.

Did you know that...

I will hunt down and kill every terrorist...
just
to make the world a safer place
for my girls... and the dog,
hypoallergenically of course.
Now you will find me,
pulling the curtains around my recovery bed,
body-scanning every mortal
or non-conformist
who dares to bring sulphurised pants
across my borders.
In future,
dissenters must be laser epilated,
teeth-whitened
and grafted with skin from the contented
who are already many and ample.
In this way,
the savage ugliness of rationality
will be entirely exfoliated
before anyone sees the beauty of truth
and realises that the Constitution
has had the mother of all facelifts
and will never look the same again.


Did you know that...

My cause is just... my resolve unwavering
because
those whom I must appease
have set me on the path
to physical enlightenment
with the possibility of becoming
exactly like them in every way
so now,
all the imperfect thoughts I had
before I was elected
have been colonically irrigated,
flushed, filtered and purified
until little remains
but unidentifiable sludge.
Now with the channels cleared
and the toxins expunged,
bullshit passes uninterrupted
into the ready plumbing of trusting ears.
- It's like a miracle -
and all the things I was before
I am no longer.
This is a process I am anxious to share
with each and every American.
And some foreigners too...
If I can catch them.

Did you know that...

Yes we can!
But I didn't.
I wore a different hat
and pretended
it was the same one I had been sporting all along.
But you see,
this disguise has allowed me to redefine the world
to my own unique design,
which is much the same as the old design,
in fact,
I used it as a template,
but it has been tweaked and tucked
until I like the way it looks.
Of course the post-op will be bloody and
for a while,
quite painful
for those who suffer from the infection of diversity
but antibiotics
will soon clear that up.
And let it be seen
that I have changed the CIA to Xe
and made them beautiful,
interchangeable on all levels,
a delicious, hybrid, concoction of hate
for which I can never be blamed.
But I cannot rest
until all the ugliness that we do not wish to see
- because it offends who we think we are -
is gone,
plumped with botox,
so that the wrinkles
will never show...

Did you know that...

..When this war began, we were united
and I refuse to accept the notion
that we cannot summon that unity again
Because
I know better than anyone else,
how easy it is to persuade the insecure
that acid throwers lurk
on every corner,
whilst underwear bombers flock,
through passportless controls
waiting to cause third degree burns,
of a disfiguring nature,
to aircraft seats.
I cannot await the flood
of explosive breast implants
and incendiary hair extensions
lighting up the skies over America
as the imperfect hordes invade,
which is why I must act now,
no matter how wrong I might be in the future.
All errors can be redesigned
to resemble intent,
so be assured,
that even if my Intelligence is Imperfect
I
am not.

Poles Apart by Carey Lenehan

We ran in the same streets
but we walk in different worlds
You and I, poles apart,
thinking, not thinking
about understanding each other,
no chance of ever seeing
eye to eye
Equality unequally distributed,
you see you
at the top of the food chain,
whereas I,
a mere reflection of yourself,
am somewhere down deep in the pond

Skin, stature, sex, sin, sisterhood,
you will never see what I see,
only the walls of the world
that fences you in to conformity
with me on the outside because I,
dressed in the threads of exception,
find conformity too straight a jacket

You see the world numerical, divisible, distributable,
Whereas I,
who came from the earth and never left,
perceive symbiosis, unity,
the absolute art of the whole,
that radiant goddess
from whom you cut chunks
and pretend there flows no blood

You cannot make us alike because of a deed,
a slash of pen on paper
You drown in incomprehension
as we circle each other
swimming in different waters,
bound only by a name,
same same, but different

You have lost the real world,
as you count profits and study the Nasdaq,
allergic to green grass and fresh air
but I am still living there,
treading the wet earth between my toes,
watching the seasons change,
listening to the fading heartbeat
of your cash cow

My earth will take me back when I am done
but where will you go to, my brother?
Will you be divisible too?
Will your company count your profit and loss
and the trees mourn your passing?
Will the pipelines shed a tear,
will your office be refilled with
a clone of you?
Will we be equal?
Can you ever... be my equal?

PCP (Political Correctness Pill) by Carey Lenehan

I pop it in my mouth, this political pill,
feel it fizz on my tongue
and the back of my throat go numb,
Feel it whizz in my bloodstream
This PCP
Suddenly I become,
a POLITICIAN.

Now, I believe, I never inhaled
when the joints were passed at Uni.
Now only I know the way
the rest of you should live.
Well, just like me, of course

The effect of PCP
changes everything I see
The new black is white
and all the shades in between
As a Politician, only I know
How to manage the roads, or Justice, or Crime
or how
You should manage your time

In this Democra-sea, the pill changes me...
Now, I don't say what I think, but only what I think
you want to hear.
Now my opinions are loose,
change in my pockets,
available to the highest bidder

Let me check the text, to see what comes next.
Now I'm a man for all people, everyone equal,
below me.
Now I'm a prince amongst men, hobnobbing when
I should be sticking up for the poor, but
you see,
I'm not poor any more.

Now I must think of the years after
the effect has worn off,
when the nobs that I hobbed
whilst under the influence
will give me the job
of my dreams and all this PCP, wil be
behind me.

Pointless Dreaming by Carey Lenehan

I dream about innumerable things
Vast and fervent wonderings
Gallant knights and days of old
Battles fought and heroes bold

I dream of love immeasurable
Perfection so compatible
Tenderness and strength entwined
In virtuosity combined

I dream of wisdom all around
Of smokeless, bloodless battlegrounds
Where bravery can never die
And happy children never cry

A world in which the sun shines through
A never ending dream of blue
Where all of us are rich and fed
And innocence is never dead

In my foolish, wistful dreams
Justice always intervenes
Perfect truth pervades our souls
And unity becomes our goal

Perfect lives and perfect loves
Clear blue seas, clean sky above
No one too rich and none too poor
Then I would dream for nothing more

On The Eve of War by Carey Lenehan © 2002

We're bringing chaos to your lands,
with loaded weapons in our hands
and tanks that leave a legacy
of mutant children and disease.

We'll bring our coca cola aims
and play our sordid little games,
for profit, pride and arrogance,
Illuminating our advance.

We do not like the things you do,
the threat you bring to our fast food,
the possibility you might
stand up against us when we're right.

You don't fit in with our beliefs,
You look like murderers and thieves.
We cannot trust the things you say.
We will not let you live your way.

And then, we need to pay you back
for that terrorist attack.
We’re well aware it wasn't you,
but it doesn't matter, you will do.

We've sold the world the fallacy
that you will take our Liberty,
threaten our whole society
in all its rich variety.

We're going to take your lives away,
change the way you have your say,
ostensibly to ease your toil,
with covert aims to own your oil.

And so we've come to change your lives,
annihilate your kids and wives.
We tell the world we're in the right
but all we want to do is fight.